Biography

What kind of leader turns the impossible into the inevitable? It takes someone with technological know-how, a shrewd entrepreneurial instinct and a passionate determination to drive progress forward. Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen, futurist, inventor and serial innovator, has impacted industries ranging from electronics to health care. Most recently, she is at the forefront of efforts to translate brain signals into physical images. For a woman who is taking mind-reading from the realm of science fiction into reality, virtually nothing is impossible.

To rethink how we see and understand our bodies, we must start with new ways of seeing into our interiors – the blood, the organs, the neurons and all the microscopic changes within. Dr. Jepsen’s fascination with body and brain imaging began 25 years ago as a graduate student. As she faced death at the hands of an unknown disease, a generous professor funded an expensive MRI scan. A brain tumor was found and removed, and she recovered to become a brilliant scientist and inventor with over 200 patents to her name. Jepsen went on to found Openwater, a startup that develops imaging technologies that will ultimately replace MRI technology, reduce health care costs and save countless lives. Jepsen’s groundbreaking work on capturing brain signals in physical form in consumer-priced devices indicates that we will soon – as early as 2020 – allow others to see what we are thinking. Such a radical development in how we communicate will not only amplify human excellence but transform the world.

Previously, Dr. Jepsen was a professor at both MIT and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, before becoming a leading technical executive with Facebook, Oculus, Google and Intel. Jepsen’s skills as an inventor and tech pioneer are matched only by her entrepreneurial and business acumen; she is the founder of four startups. She successfully co-founded and was chief technology officer of the global nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, which brought $100 computers to the world’s poorest children. Jepsen draws on her experience as a businesswoman with a background in consumer electronics, artificial intelligence and design to deliver futuristic insights on how groundbreaking ideas can be successfully commercialized. In addition to speaking about her portable medical imaging devices and emerging mental telepathy technology, Jepsen also delves into the ethical dimensions of reading people’s minds. She discusses how we can ensure that such breakthroughs are used for good rather than for immoral purposes.

Dr. Jepsen, whose work will revolutionize health care and human communication, has been widely lauded as an important technology innovator. She has been recognized with many awards and honors, including TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, CNN Top 10 thinker and accolades from the leading global professional societies in optics, display and electronics.

Mary Lou Jepsen is available for paid speaking engagements, including keynote addresses, speeches, panels, and conference talks, and advisory/consulting services, through the exclusive representation of Stern Speakers, a division of Stern Strategy Group®.

Intro Video

A-Z Name

Jepsen, Mary Lou

Biography

What kind of leader turns the impossible into the inevitable? It takes someone with technological know-how, a shrewd entrepreneurial instinct and a passionate determination to drive progress forward. Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen, futurist, inventor and serial innovator, has impacted industries ranging from electronics to health care. Most recently, she is at the forefront of efforts to translate brain signals into physical images. For a woman who is taking mind-reading from the realm of science fiction into reality, virtually nothing is impossible.

To rethink how we see and understand our bodies, we must start with new ways of seeing into our interiors – the blood, the organs, the neurons and all the microscopic changes within. Dr. Jepsen’s fascination with body and brain imaging began 25 years ago as a graduate student. As she faced death at the hands of an unknown disease, a generous professor funded an expensive MRI scan. A brain tumor was found and removed, and she recovered to become a brilliant scientist and inventor with over 200 patents to her name. Jepsen went on to found Openwater, a startup that develops imaging technologies that will ultimately replace MRI technology, reduce health care costs and save countless lives. Jepsen’s groundbreaking work on capturing brain signals in physical form in consumer-priced devices indicates that we will soon – as early as 2020 – allow others to see what we are thinking. Such a radical development in how we communicate will not only amplify human excellence but transform the world.

Previously, Dr. Jepsen was a professor at both MIT and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, before becoming a leading technical executive with Facebook, Oculus, Google and Intel. Jepsen’s skills as an inventor and tech pioneer are matched only by her entrepreneurial and business acumen; she is the founder of four startups. She successfully co-founded and was chief technology officer of the global nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, which brought $100 computers to the world’s poorest children. Jepsen draws on her experience as a businesswoman with a background in consumer electronics, artificial intelligence and design to deliver futuristic insights on how groundbreaking ideas can be successfully commercialized. In addition to speaking about her portable medical imaging devices and emerging mental telepathy technology, Jepsen also delves into the ethical dimensions of reading people’s minds. She discusses how we can ensure that such breakthroughs are used for good rather than for immoral purposes.

Dr. Jepsen, whose work will revolutionize health care and human communication, has been widely lauded as an important technology innovator. She has been recognized with many awards and honors, including TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, CNN Top 10 thinker and accolades from the leading global professional societies in optics, display and electronics.

Mary Lou Jepsen is available for paid speaking engagements, including keynote addresses, speeches, panels, and conference talks, and advisory/consulting services, through the exclusive representation of Stern Speakers, a division of Stern Strategy Group®.

Speech Topics

Let There Be Light: The Future of Medical Imaging

MRI technology is both expensive and potentially harmful. What if a completely safe (as well as cheap) method of seeing deep inside our bodies and brains could be devised? Mary Lou Jepsen has been working to improve medical imaging since her life was saved when she was young, by a scan that detected a deadly tumor. Having only survived because a generous professor agreed to pay for the scan, Jepsen seeks to make imaging widely available and affordable to people throughout the world. Jepsen has developed methods of using light to view inside the human body and brain, even through bone. In this presentation based on her groundbreaking TED Talk, Jepsen demonstrates to audiences how she utilizes the body’s natural translucence to use only light in accomplishing what once took a large, expensive and potentially harmful machine. She also reveals the opportunities for health care manufacturers to dramatically expand the market for medical imaging.

How to Read Minds and Influence People: The Arrival of Telepathic Tech

Telepathy was once the preserve of science fiction. Thanks to Mary Lou Jepsen, the ability to read minds could be the function of a common wearable device within the next several years. An engineer and physicist, Jepsen leverages methods of capturing and interpreting brain signals previously used with fMRI. Using machine learning and big data analysis reconstructed images are remarkably similar to the real-world objects and scenes that subjects think about. With neuroscience having proven that images, words and emotions can really be extracted from the brain, Jepsen is now perfecting a wearable device in the form of a hat – a “thinking cap” – that allows people to show others what is on their minds in daily interactions. In this presentation, Jepsen discusses her technology, its potential impact on the world and how we can successfully bring it to fruition without allowing it to go too far. In particular, she delves into the ethical implications of mind-reading technology and how consideration of privacy rights needs to be at the forefront of development.